I agree that some of the keys Wierwille taught were just common sense, like keeping things in context and stuff like that, but these simple things are many times ignored by those claming to know and understand the scriptures.
However, some of Wierwille's/Bullinger's "keys", if strictly adhered to, just simply don't work out. "Previous usage" is is one and so is "scripture build-up". For example, strictly adhering to scripture build-up makes a mess of harmonizing the Gospels and leads to interpreting the same event as two different but similar events.
As you pointed out with agape, previous usage is another than can get you in the soup. Context and usage/meaning at the time something was written should always take priority over previous or first usage.
All in all the Bullinger's keys were not too bad, but if considered infallible and if used dogmatically, they can lead to substantial errors in interpretation.
Let's not forget bema, which in the Wierwille years was only a place of rewards. (I guess that Jesus DID get a "crown" at Pilate's bema!) Interestingly, Martindale corrected this years later.
I believe that the "research keys" were part of a marketing package. Wierwille took advantage of those who were disillusioned with the pomp and ceremony of religion, by offering an alternative approach to "Christianity". He chose to embrace the "fits like a hand in a glove" philosophy in order to promote his product. A mathematic exactness and a scientific precision sounded a lot better than counting beads and being confused. He appealed to the "logic" of the prospective convert rather than to the "duty of religious faith", that most God groups were peddeling. He picked up a lot of the disenfranchised, non religious people by using this sales technique.
Of course, the great "logic" that went into the research, ended up being a compilation of works by other writers that Wierwille admired. Unfortunately, he didn't admire them enough to give them credit for what he "borrowed" and called his own.
Most serious scholars consider Wierwille's work to be sophmoric at best. His "research keys" only provided the basis for a "system" of control for TWI leaders. Self realization and spiritual perception were replaced with group think and spiritual codependance. Academic smugness is hardly a substitute for spiritual enlightenment.
Thank you all for the welcome. Nothing like a good cup of coffee. I have been reading the Grease Spot for some time now. Thought I would come in and sit down for awhile, it's nice to find a place that feels like home.
Like most of wierwille's stuff there is no logical consistency. In one place he says the word interprets itself "in the verse" yet in another place he says the verses were put in by men, that the original text had no verses. So how can verses be used as a godly distinction?
Likewise the term "used before". How do you determine the which came first? Do you use historically when they were written? What if there are competing historical theories? Do you use the cannonical order of King James? Why depend on those scholars for that but not their other insights?
And for that matter - how is it determined that certain books made the cut? What about the "books" that some people believed in back then but we don't ascribe to today? What about texts that weren't given much credence in their time but are now?
The whole idea of determining such unvarying truth from a disparate group of texts that have been hand copied and retranslated so many times is absurd.
It's funny reading the keys again... its the first time in years!!! Whoa... timewarp!
As for some of them being obvious, I remember it being said that Dr. Wierwille was a master of the obvious, and that this was part of his brilliance because so many people (especially in religious circles) overlooked or ignored the obvious. In my experience this was true. I left my childhood church for this very thing. I remember asking the Pastor some pointed questions during confirmation classes and his responses were just ridiculous.
So, Knuckles is right... as someone who had tried several different denominations and not found a spiritual home, the "logic" and "certainty" offered in twi had great appeal. I finally felt like I was learning something useful and getting somewhere with my spirituality.
It wasn't until my last few years in twit that I started to realize how much Wierwille, et. al. waffled on the "keys". This one to fit this point, that one to make that point. Teach one thing do another. When I finally did start to notice, I saw that it was fundamental to everything they did... if you were getting "reproved" from leadership over something and you could back up your actions, they would change tack and come at you from another direction. Anything to always be right.
I always thought Wierwille's ideas about scripture build up were a little far fetched. The idea that each of the gospel writers might have simply remembered events a little bit differently wasn't allowed. Afterall, "God has a reason for everything He says, where He says it, how He says, etc., etc." Not to mention that every word written came by direct revelation. It didn't matter if it didn't make any sense, the problem was your accursed "understanding". That was Wierwille's diplomatic way of saying that if you disagreed with him, you were wrong. He was a master of spin. He would have people eating out of his hand. He called us his kids and cried on stage. We ate it up and allowed him to slip his shody version of biblical research past us.
My apologies to Bob Dylan:
"We were so much dumber then, we're smarter than that now"
You are correct in the scripture buildup, especially in harmonizing the gospels. Wierwille's way did not harmonize the gospels but added to them. The gospel writers wrote from what they witnessed in their own view as truthfully as they could, and I do believe God inspired these men to write down their individual accounts, God specifically picking men who would write them as King, Servant, Man, and Son of God. The differences in their accounts are not contradictions, nor do we say they are separate individual accounts than the other gospel writers had written. Rather, if we put the records together, their records complement the others and fit together and there are still no contradictions if translated properly. I don't believe Wierwille or Bullinger did this properly.
Goodness, memories come flooding back. Today I am free from all those mental gymnastics. I ask God, he unfolds the answers to my inner being or spirit or whatever you want to call it. It's all between me and God.
A much kinder, gentler relationship with my heavenly Father. And it's not my responsibility to make sure others walk in my understanding either!
Wow! I see how obviously duped I was!! I thought TWI was IT and that I was really getting the answers I had been asking for years. When you look at the absurdity and "research technique" selection process used to justify whatever TWI's position on the scriptures was I feel so stupid.
Thank God I quit drinking the kool-aid and started living the TRULY MORE ABUNDANT LIFE!!
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Goey
Oak,
I agree that some of the keys Wierwille taught were just common sense, like keeping things in context and stuff like that, but these simple things are many times ignored by those claming to know and understand the scriptures.
However, some of Wierwille's/Bullinger's "keys", if strictly adhered to, just simply don't work out. "Previous usage" is is one and so is "scripture build-up". For example, strictly adhering to scripture build-up makes a mess of harmonizing the Gospels and leads to interpreting the same event as two different but similar events.
As you pointed out with agape, previous usage is another than can get you in the soup. Context and usage/meaning at the time something was written should always take priority over previous or first usage.
All in all the Bullinger's keys were not too bad, but if considered infallible and if used dogmatically, they can lead to substantial errors in interpretation.
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Belle
Agreed. Also, the research key used depended on the lesson and message desired.
The leaders also "agaped" the higher seats.
terrasso, lambano, dechomai and luo are some other words they totally mis-represented. I questioned these and was labeled a trouble-maker.
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GeorgeStGeorge
Let's not forget bema, which in the Wierwille years was only a place of rewards. (I guess that Jesus DID get a "crown" at Pilate's bema!) Interestingly, Martindale corrected this years later.
George
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Knuckles
I believe that the "research keys" were part of a marketing package. Wierwille took advantage of those who were disillusioned with the pomp and ceremony of religion, by offering an alternative approach to "Christianity". He chose to embrace the "fits like a hand in a glove" philosophy in order to promote his product. A mathematic exactness and a scientific precision sounded a lot better than counting beads and being confused. He appealed to the "logic" of the prospective convert rather than to the "duty of religious faith", that most God groups were peddeling. He picked up a lot of the disenfranchised, non religious people by using this sales technique.
Of course, the great "logic" that went into the research, ended up being a compilation of works by other writers that Wierwille admired. Unfortunately, he didn't admire them enough to give them credit for what he "borrowed" and called his own.
Most serious scholars consider Wierwille's work to be sophmoric at best. His "research keys" only provided the basis for a "system" of control for TWI leaders. Self realization and spiritual perception were replaced with group think and spiritual codependance. Academic smugness is hardly a substitute for spiritual enlightenment.
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Steve!
Welcome to da G-spot, Knuck.
First cuppa cawfee's on Raf.
You been lurking a while, or didja just find this place?
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Raf
Welcome Knuckles.
Let me know if you need cream and sugar.
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excathedra
hi knuckles, are you really a bouncer ?
"fits like a hand in a glove" wow the "good" news for me is I just thought of OJ's trial rather than pfal. ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha
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Knuckles
Thank you all for the welcome. Nothing like a good cup of coffee. I have been reading the Grease Spot for some time now. Thought I would come in and sit down for awhile, it's nice to find a place that feels like home.
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A la prochaine
Knuckles
Welcome! Glad you feel like home here.
It's a good place and lots of laughter and healing.
Glad to have you with us!
:)-->
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excathedra
i forgot to say, knuckes, insightful post
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My3Cents
Like most of wierwille's stuff there is no logical consistency. In one place he says the word interprets itself "in the verse" yet in another place he says the verses were put in by men, that the original text had no verses. So how can verses be used as a godly distinction?
Likewise the term "used before". How do you determine the which came first? Do you use historically when they were written? What if there are competing historical theories? Do you use the cannonical order of King James? Why depend on those scholars for that but not their other insights?
And for that matter - how is it determined that certain books made the cut? What about the "books" that some people believed in back then but we don't ascribe to today? What about texts that weren't given much credence in their time but are now?
The whole idea of determining such unvarying truth from a disparate group of texts that have been hand copied and retranslated so many times is absurd.
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Vertical Limit
It doesn't phase me one bit when people say this has been "added to the text". This does not mean it's not written by men moved by the holy spirit.
If you think about it all scripture was added to the text. Moses, Solomon, David, and others all wrote things, now known as scripture.
Many things written here at greasespot are written by men and women as they are moved by the holy spirit.
In the name of these biblical keys, many scriptures were ignored or written off as a forgery. Time to reevaluate some I believe.
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TheHighWay
It's funny reading the keys again... its the first time in years!!! Whoa... timewarp!
As for some of them being obvious, I remember it being said that Dr. Wierwille was a master of the obvious, and that this was part of his brilliance because so many people (especially in religious circles) overlooked or ignored the obvious. In my experience this was true. I left my childhood church for this very thing. I remember asking the Pastor some pointed questions during confirmation classes and his responses were just ridiculous.
So, Knuckles is right... as someone who had tried several different denominations and not found a spiritual home, the "logic" and "certainty" offered in twi had great appeal. I finally felt like I was learning something useful and getting somewhere with my spirituality.
It wasn't until my last few years in twit that I started to realize how much Wierwille, et. al. waffled on the "keys". This one to fit this point, that one to make that point. Teach one thing do another. When I finally did start to notice, I saw that it was fundamental to everything they did... if you were getting "reproved" from leadership over something and you could back up your actions, they would change tack and come at you from another direction. Anything to always be right.
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excathedra
but but but where-willie? saw snow....
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alfakat
BUT, and this is in the emphatic, rarely used, extra, extra, EXTRA tense, was it yeller snow?????
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Knuckles
I always thought Wierwille's ideas about scripture build up were a little far fetched. The idea that each of the gospel writers might have simply remembered events a little bit differently wasn't allowed. Afterall, "God has a reason for everything He says, where He says it, how He says, etc., etc." Not to mention that every word written came by direct revelation. It didn't matter if it didn't make any sense, the problem was your accursed "understanding". That was Wierwille's diplomatic way of saying that if you disagreed with him, you were wrong. He was a master of spin. He would have people eating out of his hand. He called us his kids and cried on stage. We ate it up and allowed him to slip his shody version of biblical research past us.
My apologies to Bob Dylan:
"We were so much dumber then, we're smarter than that now"
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excathedra
yeah well i ain't his kid
(no offense to his kids)
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Eagle
Welcome Knuckles!
You are correct in the scripture buildup, especially in harmonizing the gospels. Wierwille's way did not harmonize the gospels but added to them. The gospel writers wrote from what they witnessed in their own view as truthfully as they could, and I do believe God inspired these men to write down their individual accounts, God specifically picking men who would write them as King, Servant, Man, and Son of God. The differences in their accounts are not contradictions, nor do we say they are separate individual accounts than the other gospel writers had written. Rather, if we put the records together, their records complement the others and fit together and there are still no contradictions if translated properly. I don't believe Wierwille or Bullinger did this properly.
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Rejoice
Goodness, memories come flooding back. Today I am free from all those mental gymnastics. I ask God, he unfolds the answers to my inner being or spirit or whatever you want to call it. It's all between me and God.
A much kinder, gentler relationship with my heavenly Father. And it's not my responsibility to make sure others walk in my understanding either!
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Belle
Wow! I see how obviously duped I was!! I thought TWI was IT and that I was really getting the answers I had been asking for years. When you look at the absurdity and "research technique" selection process used to justify whatever TWI's position on the scriptures was I feel so stupid.
Thank God I quit drinking the kool-aid and started living the TRULY MORE ABUNDANT LIFE!!
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Eagle
Belle,
You are more intelligent than all the life in TWI combined.
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Belle
Awww, thanks, Eagle!
:)-->
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